Climate Change, the Courts and the Rights of Children and Future Generations

Group of children protesting with banners on climate change.

What’s on offer?

Join us for this Public Lecture by guest speaker Prof Aoife Nolan, University of Nottingham and the Co-Director of Nottingham’s Human Rights Law Centre. Prof Nolan will discuss the role of courts in considering children's rights and future generations in the context of the urgent global challenge of climate change.

What’s it about?

Children and future generations will bear the burden of environmental decisions made today. However, these non-voting groups cannot input effectively into decision-making around the environment. This lecture will analyse the role that courts should adopt with regard to enforcing the constitutional rights of children and future generations in environmental protection cases. Responding to this ever-more prominent theme in child and youth-focused and driven environmental advocacy and litigation, the lecture will focus on how these groups' position ‘outside democracy’ can and should shape the courts' role when deciding whether to impose constitutional constraints on democratic decision-making in the environmental protection context.